by editor | Sep 7, 2025 | Adventure Learning, At-risk Youth, Equity and Inclusion, Outdoor education and Outdoor School, Place-based Education
Children’s Grand Adventure:
The power of potential through the power of place
by Sami Wolniakowski
Southern Oregon University Graduate Student
In order to heal from hardship, for centuries people resorted to nature. The calm and beauty found in the outdoors instills an everlasting joy. In the pristine wilderness of the Jackson Hole Valley, a non-profit organization called Children’s Grand Adventure (CGA) takes this practice and adds another key component called Place-Based Education through their cooperation with Teton Science School. The model that CGA has developed is an innovative program that other organizations would benefit from. CGA is also looking for new partnerships that have a similar mission.
CGA gives cancer survivors the opportunity to experience the beauty of life within Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. Over the course of a week, students experience America’s first national park in this grand adventure. Chaperones who participated as students in years past accompany current students, giving them role models to help support their healing process. A typical group consists of four chaperones, nine students and three instructors. This offers the ability to build a tight knit community. Emma Hereford is a chaperone who has been a mentor for 5 years. Emma stated:
For months, years, or maybe even a lifetime patients’ lives have been defined by frequent hospital visits, the grueling demands of treatments, pain, psychological damage, and lack of school. Due to these unfortunate circumstances each child’s view on the outside world is nothing but a small glimpse to what it actually is or what it has to offer. For the first time in years, or in some cases ever, survivors finally get to experience travel, environmental education, and develop lifelong friendships for an entire week in one of the most beautiful places in the world.
CGA was started by Stacey C. Kayem in 2008. She believes that, “The more novel the environment, the more students realize within themselves their own nature and capacity to conquer.” In Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks students get to hike in Teton Mountains, kayak in glacial lakes, watch apex predators in the wild, and view thermal features in Yellowstone. Every day students are challenged both physically and mentally in a way they never have been before. Stacey states that CGA gives students “the opportunity . . . to join hands with the nature that nearly took them” so that they can “walk forward together into boundless horizons of strength and confident human prosperity.”
Teton Science School provides field instructors to CGA who are experts of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). Instructors get to use a Place-Based Education approach to teach students about all that the GYE has to offer. Place Based Education, a pedagogy that uses the power of place to teach students an approach that is learner centered, incorporates design thinking, is interdisciplinary, and uses the community as the classroom. The vice president of field education, Joe Petrick, states:
During CGA young people benefit from immersion in nature, connections to peers and a sense of empowerment and self-reliance. All of these outcomes are achieved through Place-Based Education (PBE), an approach to education that empowers the learner to explore their world, understand their world and change their world for the better. CGA uses PBE to build an intentional community of leaders who are empowered to harness community resources to support themselves and others.
CGA gives students the ability to come together and make each other stronger, in a bond that will last a lifetime. Stacey Kayem recently recalled the story of a student who was bound to leg braces because his muscles were atrophied. His braces, for the first time, were taken off three months before the program. Unsure and questioning his confidence on day one, he faced the challenge and proceeded to lead the hike for seven days. The pure freedom found in the power of his untapped physical strength was simply waiting to be freed. This student motivated everyone in their field group to persevere through hardships, just by taking one step at a time.
In the future CGA is looking to expand to more hospitals, and use new locations to teach place-based education. Currently, CGA partners with Texas Children’s Hospital, but wishes to establish more partnerships. After reaching over 100 students since 2008, they want to continue the legacy of offering opportunities for students to seek their untapped potential, through the power of place.
Samantha Wolniakowski recently completed her Masters Degree at Southern Oregon University, where she was a graduate assistant in the MS Environmental Education program.
by editor | Sep 2, 2025 | At-risk Youth, Environmental Literacy, Equity and Inclusion, Learning Theory, Service learning
Developing the “Whole Person”
By Emily J. Anderson
Photos by Emily McDonald-Williams
Practitioners in the field of environmental education have a variety of personal reasons for pursuing this work. Many cite their desire to connect youth with nature, introduce youth to careers in the sciences, and generally, create an environmentally literate society. While we are deeply focused on these goals, there may be even more compelling outcomes under the surface. Environmental educators are creating successful, healthy, contributing members of society. In other words, we are supporting “whole-person development” through our rich educational programs.
While environmental educators may recognize these broader impacts on the youth they serve, we rarely design our programs to support positive youth development outcomes with intentionality. Nor do we measure these outcomes through evaluation and assessment. Rather, we are often highly focused on learning outcomes and meeting science standards. Designing environmental education programs within a research-based positive youth development framework and then measuring outcomes, not only adds tremendous meaning to our efforts, but also adds credibility and value to our field. If we begin thinking of ourselves as positive youth development educators, in addition to content specialists, our program outcomes expand, leading to greater organizational growth.
Positive Youth Development, or PYD, emphasizes building on youth’s strengths, rather than on the prevention of problems. Meaning, programs seek not only to prevent adolescents from engaging in health-compromising behaviors, but also to build their abilities and competencies (Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2003). This approach suggests empowering youth in their own development through relationships with peers, mentors, family, school, and community. The research supports the importance and power of a holistic approach to youth development, comprehensively infusing youth programs with core PYD elements. These include opportunities for belonging, opportunities to make a difference, supportive relationships, positive social norms, opportunities for skill building, and integration with family, school, and community efforts (Sibthrop, 2010).
Case Study: Designing and Evaluating
4-H Junior Master Naturalist”
4-H is the nation’s largest youth organization with a long history of positive outcomes. One of the many characteristics that makes 4-H unique and adds to its strong reputation is that its programs are deeply rooted in positive youth development (PYD) theory. One of 4-H’s mission mandates is science and there are countless environmental education programs that fall under that umbrella. One such program is Oregon’s Junior Master Naturalist. As with other 4-H programs, Junior Master Naturalist was intentionally designed within a positive youth development framework: the Oregon 4-H Program Model. To measure the success of this design, participants completed evaluations for both environmental literacy outcomes and PYD outcomes. Junior Master Naturalist serves as a worthy example of situating environmental education programming within a PYD context.
Junior Master Naturalist is an experiential, place-based, science program. It targets underserved youth through after-school and weekend sessions as well as a four-day residential camp experience. Participants engage in six units of study: ecoregions, geology and soils, watersheds and water resources, forests and plant communities, wildlife, and marine science. Approximately 75% of experiences are field based, while 25% are hands-on classroom activities. All sessions are family-friendly and content is often youth-driven.
The goals of Junior Master Naturalist are to connect youth with their local landscape, develop a sense of stewardship, introduce participants to natural science careers, and improve environmental literacy. Additionally, following the Oregon 4-H Program Model, developmental outcomes sought are academic motivation and success, reduction in risk behaviors, healthful choices, social competence, personal standards, and connection and contribution to others.
Content goals for Junior master Naturalist are achieved through curriculum design and field experiences. However, developmental outcomes required consideration of several programmatic factors. These include 1) high program quality, 2) appropriate intensity and duration, and 3) healthy developmental relationships. It was important to program staff to ensure that not only would the curriculum and activities be of high quality, but the opportunity for youth to connect with one another and have positive adult role models were present as well. Furthermore, participants have the opportunity to pursue deeper study of topics they most connect with and are offered a wide range of field experiences, including camping, citizen science, service learning, and outdoor recreation. There is a continual focus on health and well-being, independent exploration, and making connections to their local communities.
In 2017, participants from three Junior Master Naturalist cohorts completed evaluations measuring several desired outcomes. The evaluation tool first asked participants to rate their feelings about their interest in science, their perceived competency in science, their interest in a science career field, and their desire to learn more about science. As anticipated, results demonstrated growth in all areas. Next, the evaluation measured positive youth development outcomes based on the framework used in program design.
Indicators of program quality included participants’ sense of belonging in the program.
94.9% reported feeling welcome
96.1% said they felt safe
90.9% said they felt like they mattered
Measuring the presence of developmental relationships included adults in the program expressing care, challenging growth, and sharing power.
98.6% felt respected by adults in the program
94.9% said adults paid attention to them
92.9% believe adults expected them to do something positive
While this is only a snapshot of PYD evaluation results from the Junior Master Naturalist program, it illustrates the tremendous potential of measuring and sharing the developmental outcomes achieved in environmental education programs.
Integrating Positive Youth Development in Your Program
One of the fortuitous qualities about environmental education programs is that short- and long-term developmental outcomes inherently occur whether we are intentional about positive youth development, or not. However, if you want to get more out of your program, challenge yourself to incorporate PYD principles during the planning phase of your program. Alternatively, for existing programs, consider self-evaluating with a proven PYD framework to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement.
The Oregon 4-H Program Model is a framework specifically designed for 4-H programs. However, there are other prominent models with broader application for use in a variety of youth programs. These include The Five Cs, Community Action Framework for Youth Development, and Character Counts!. According to experts in the field, however, the Developmental Assets Framework is likely to remain among the most useful approaches to positive youth development for the near future. The scientific depth and practical utility of this model provide extensive resources for assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation for programs serving youth and communities in a variety of settings (Arnold & Silliman, 2017).
The Developmental Assets Framework, developed in 1990 by the Search Institute, identifies a set of skills, experiences, relationships, and behaviors that enable young people to develop into successful and contributing adults. According to research, the more Developmental Assets young people acquire, the better their chances of succeeding in school and becoming happy, healthy, and contributing members of their communities and society. The list of 40 Developmental Assets for Adolescents, broken down by age groups, can be found on the Search Institute’s website (Search Institute, 2017)
Becoming familiar with the Developmental Assets and thinking about how you can support this development in your program’s participants is the first step to infusing a healthy layer of positive youth development in your program. Digging in to the research and consulting experts in the field will help to identify the best way to integrate PYD principles and design evaluation instruments that measure effectiveness. Perhaps starting by including several PYD questions in your existing participant evaluation will provide valuable baseline data to inform growth potential.
In summary, environmental educators are doing noble work with endless benefits for youth, ecological systems, and our society as a whole. It is important that we recognize the value in our work that often goes unseen and celebrate our, often, hidden successes. Youth in our programs are building confidence and independence, developing healthy lifestyles and pro-social behaviors, and becoming contributing members of their communities. While these victories are already something to be proud of, why not take it up a notch by putting some intentionality behind our efforts to reach even greater outcomes? While designing high quality environmental education, we should challenge ourselves to support development of the “whole person” by incorporating positive youth development principles. Not only will these efforts have lifelong impacts on our program participants, but they will support our organizations as well. Sharing evidence of positive developmental outcomes will help promote our programs, recruit more participants, and appeal to potential funders for increased financial support. ❏
References
Arnold, M.E. & Silliman, B. (2017). From theory to practice: a critical review of positive youth development program frameworks. Journal of Youth Development, 12(2), 1-20.
Roth, J. L., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2003). What exactly is a youth development program? Answers from research and practice. Applied Developmental Science, 7, 94-111.
Search Institute, (2017). Developmental assets. Retrieved from http://www.search-institute.org/research/developmental-assets
Sibthrop, J. (2010). A letter from the editor: Positioning outdoor and adventure programs within positive youth development. Journal of Experiential Education, 33(2), vi-ix.
Emily Anderson is a 4-H Youth Development Educator in Lane County, Oregon. She has written previously for CLEARING.
by editor | Sep 1, 2025 | At-risk Youth, Climate Change & Energy, Equity and Inclusion, Indigenous Peoples & Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Language Arts
First-person narratives bring climate change closer to home.
By Lauren G. McClanahan
“So, is her house actually sinking?”
“Yes, Heather, it is.”
“But, that’s so sad! I want to do something about that!”
No doubt my preservice secondary education student, Heather, is familiar with the topic of climate change. Everywhere we look, we see media coverage. But there still seems to be something missing. There still appears to be a disconnect, for my preservice teachers, anyway, between what they read about online and what they see in their day-to-day lives. And this has huge implications for their futures as public school teachers. One way to address this disconnect has been to put a face to the topic of climate change. By connecting all of my “Heathers” to students who live in places where climate change is having actual, observable effects, a topic that was once only theoretical to many of my students becomes real.
Kwigillingok, Alaska, vs. Bellingham, Wash.
My teacher-ed students at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., come from multiple walks of life, are at different points in their educational and working careers, and have different goals for their futures as middle and high school teachers. However, one commonality that my students tend to share is their geography. Most hail from western Washington state—up and down the “I-5” corridor. Take the freeway north, and in 15 minutes, you’re in Canada. A few hours south, and you’ve crossed into Oregon. On a daily basis, my students don’t give much thought to climate change. No doubt, many claim to be “green” through-and-through. They recycle, use compact fluorescent bulbs, and buy local whenever possible. And these efforts are important; but as for the big changes—the catastrophic ones happening in our circumpolar regions—my students just don’t see it. In contrast, the students of Kwigillingok, Alaska, see these changes every day and can document firsthand how their village is changing because of them.
Kwigillingok is a small Yup’ik fishing village in western Alaska that sits along the Bering Sea. With a population of about 400, the residents depend on a subsistence culture to survive, much as they have done for thousands of years. Fishing, hunting, and creating and selling crafts are as integral today as they have been for centuries. However, our warming earth is now threatening that culture.
I began working with the students of “Kwig” several years ago, when one of my former students was hired to teach in the Lower Kuskokwim School District. What started as a simple pen-pal relationship between her high school students and my college students slowly transformed into the project described here. And while the students have changed over the years, the questions that they were asking of one another became more focused, until we decided that the topic of climate change was the main issue that everyone wanted to discuss.
The biggest challenge faced by the residents of Kwig is the melting of the permafrost, that layer of frozen ground that lies just below the earth’s surface and that is supposed to stay frozen year-round. Recently, that permafrost has begun to melt, and as a result, major changes are taking place. Many homes and other structures in the village are beginning to sink, leaning to one side as the permafrost they were built upon begins to shift. In addition to sinking homes, new, invasive species of plants are beginning to take root and grow, which in turn is slowly changing the migratory patterns of big game such as the local musk ox populations. Fishing, too, has been affected by the warming trend, and fish camps have had to relocate depending on the changing location of the fish. These are big changes that can be seen and felt and experienced daily in the lives of Kwig’s high school students. It was these changes that they wanted to tell us about, to tell the future teachers “down there” to share with all of their future students. They wanted to let everyone know that climate change is real and has a face and a name—hence the “First Person Singular” project. This was a project to create a warning for the rest of us, those of us who do not have to prop our houses up with sandbags or who do not have to go hungry due to a lack of fish in our rivers. Or at least not yet.
The “First Person Singular” Project
As mentioned, the relationship between Kwig and WWU began when a former student of mine was hired into the district. I had always been interested in Native cultures and found this to be an opportunity to weave that interest into the literacy classes that I teach. The more the students shared with us about their culture and their harsh, yet beautiful landscape, the more I felt as if I had to visit. In an initial visit, I met with the teachers and students at several village schools. I saw firsthand what the students of this region had to share with my students, not only from a cultural perspective, but also a scientific one as we delved deeper into the issue of climate change and its effect on their culture.
Recently, one of my current students approached me about completing his student teaching internship at the Kwig school. “I just want a very rural, very challenging school setting,” he told me. Well, did I have the place for him! Luckily, my intrepid student would not mind hauling his own water, which is what he would have to do, since many of the buildings in Kwig have no running water. He did, however, have the luxury of a newly installed incinerator toilet in his cabin—preferable to a Honey Bucket. Before he left, my student (a future English teacher) and I had talked about doing a project with his students that would combine disciplines and allow the students’ own voices to be heard. The concept of place-based education, of focusing curriculum on local issues, had been an important part of our university classes, and my student wanted to try it out. He liked the combination of using the local setting as the classroom, and letting his students “direct” their learning—two of the main components of place-based education. So, with his students’ input, a project was decided upon, and I made plans to come up and help facilitate the project after he eased into his new role as student teacher. I figured that another visit would give me an opportunity not only to formally observe my student teacher, but also work in person with this project and these students that I had been thinking about for some time.
Before I traveled to Kwig for the second time, I asked the high school students (with whom I communicated by email) to photograph any evidence of climate change that they could see in their village. Then, once I arrived, my student teacher and I sat down with each student to talk about the photos they had taken. This technique of using “auto-driven photo elicitation” (as it is called in the field of visual studies) proved to be beneficial. Auto-driven photo elicitation is simply when people involved in a research study take their own photographs, and use those photos as the basis for later interviews (Clark, 1999). The photos gave us a starting point—something on which to focus our conversation. Otherwise, I was afraid that the conversation might become too abstract, or even too uncomfortable (seeing as how the students had never met me face-to-face, but only through email). However, by focusing on the photos, we were able to get to the heart of what was important to the students. After all, we were talking about their photos, of evidence of climate change in their village.
After we spent time talking about the photos (individually and as a group), I asked students to pick a favorite photo and write about why it was the best choice to illustrate the effects of climate change. Because we had talked about the photos first, the writing part was easy. They could describe, in detail, why their photos mattered, and why their audience, my preservice teachers, needed to know about them. Then, after they had written their paragraphs, I asked students to read their paragraphs (or parts of their paragraphs) into a digital voice recorder so that we could incorporate their own voices (literally) into our final product. One of the students even volunteered to play the piano so that our project would have a soundtrack.
One of the students photographed a leaning building. He described it this way:
“The world is changing. It’s getting warmer and warmer. Ice is melting everywhere, even underground. The melting of the permafrost causes hills, houses, and other buildings to sink. Permafrost is a section in the ground where everything is frozen. It melts and refreezes around the year, but lately, there has been more melt than freeze. If we don’t do something, we could lose this beautiful land that we lived in for thousands of years, forever.”
He then wrote the same paragraph in his native Yup’ik language, and read them both aloud. This was powerful. Another student photographed seagulls that were hanging around later in the season than usual. She explained that “it’s unusual for them to still be here [in October], which suggests that [the ground] is not as cold as it looks.
Once the paragraphs had been written and recorded, students responded to several prompts that they created themselves, such as, “What is worth preserving in Kwig?” One student responded, “We don’t have a lot of money. We need to stay near the ocean so we can fish. We don’t want to have to move farther and farther back every few years. We can’t leave, but we can’t stay, either.” When asked what message they wanted to send to the preservice teachers in Washington, one student said, “Please understand that what you do down there has a great impact on us up here. Understand that we’re all in this together. Climate change doesn’t just affect polar bears—it affects people, too.”
The project’s final phase was to put our photos, words, and voices into a very short iMovie. The students helped plan the sequencing, and then we put it together. And while the “film” was only four and a half minutes long, it sent a strong message to the preservice teachers it was meant to educate. After viewing the movie, one of my preservice teachers wrote, “Now that I know this—now that I have seen these kids’ faces and heard their stories—I can’t ‘un-know’ it. Now I have to decide what I can do about it, both in my classroom, and in my everyday life.”
Larger Implications
Place-based education, while not a new concept, is particularly well-suited for the inclusion of student voices. With its aim of grounding learning in local phenomena and students’ lived experience (Smith, 2002), it can be easily adapted to fit any number of school curricula. For example, nearly every city or town has local issues that can be studied in greater depth, be they environmental issues (toxic wastewater), social justice issues (migrant workers’ access to health care), or issues dealing with the economy (how city taxes are used to fund local schools). In the case of our project, climate change was an obvious topic for exploration, given our fortunate connection with students in the far North. Plus, the topic fits nicely into the definition of “sustainability education.” Within WWU’s Woodring College of Education, our underlying assumption is that education for sustainability (as opposed to education about sustainability) will result in citizens who are more likely to engage in personal behavior or contribute to public policy decisions in the best interest of the environmental commons and future generations (Nolet, 2009).
Personal Implications
When students take control of their learning, and take control of how that learning can be demonstrated, amazing things can happen. For the Kwig high school students, they learned that they had not only some very important things to say, but also an audience that was receptive to and respectful of their words and ideas. For my preservice teachers, they learned that they are not the experts on everything, and sometimes they have to step aside to let the experts step forward (in this case, the students themselves). This idea of relinquishing power in the classroom can intimidate a new teacher, but it is an important lesson, especially regarding student engagement.
After viewing the high school students’ film, my preservice teachers had a lot to say about place-based education, and how this project connects students to their local communities, and society as a whole. One student commented, “Obviously, the kids in the movie care about what is happening to their homes and land. We need that heart in schools, or what they are learning means nothing.”
Many students also commented on the topic of climate change. “Now I know why I take the time to recycle! It’s not much, but it’s a small step I can take to help preserve the world’s cultures.” Another student said, “Now that I know this—about the challenges facing Kwig due to climate change—I feel obligated to do something about it.” Climate change now has a name and a face. It’s personal.
Similar projects that focus on topics of local concern could be created within other curricula. Any place-based study could benefit from hearing the voices of those most affected. Travel to each place is certainly not mandatory. Using even simple technology such as email or Skype could connect classrooms across town or across the world. Because, in the end, it is all about the relationships that can be forged as a result of storytelling. The more we know about others through their stories, in their own voices, the more inspired we might be to recognize those voices in our own.
References
Clark, C. (1999). The autodriven interview: A photographic viewfinder into children’s experience. Visual Sociology, 14, 39-50.
Nolet, V. W. (2009). Preparing sustainably literate teachers.Teachers College Record, 111(5).
Smith, G. A. (2002). Place-based education: Learning to be where we are. Phi Delta Kappan (April), 584-594.
Lauren G. McClanahan (Lauren.mcclanahan@wwu.edu) is a professor at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash.
by editor | Sep 1, 2025 | At-risk Youth, Critical Thinking, Experiential Learning, K-12 Activities, Schoolyard Classroom
by Abigail Harding and Corwyn Ellison
“We do not learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience.”
-—John Dewey
When we walk silently in the forest we allow ourselves to deepen our connection and strengthen our appreciation for the natural world. Suddenly, we hear animals unfamiliar to us, and observe natural phenomena we never stopped to notice. Exposure to the natural world and reflection is beneficial to physical and mental well-being. The psychological power of a reflective solo walk is astounding—so much so that conscious reflective thought has been shown to change the very structure of our brains.1 Experience-based learning is more powerful when coupled with reflection. Reflection is defined as an intentional effort to observe, synthesize, abstract and articulate the key learnings gathered from an experience.2 When implemented intentionally, solo walks provide a context in which both experiential education and mindfulness converge for the benefit of student learning.
A solo walk is a relatively simple concept: an individual walks alone on a trail or perhaps through the neighborhood to connect, reflect or reason through an event, emotions, or anything else that comes up during that time. It is not novel, but can be revolutionary for the individual participating in it. Using solo walks to introduce observation and reflections skills to students is not only effective in learning, but also important in connecting with themselves, the community, and the environment. In this article we will provide a framework for conducting solo walks with students in natural settings.
What is a solo walk?
A solo walk is an independent, thought-provoking walk through a relatively isolated area. A key goal of a solo walk is to practice observational skills and promote critical thinking, and introspective thought in students. This is accomplished through both the solo walk itself, and reflective journaling and debriefing after. During the walk students are guided both in their direction on the trail and mindful awareness by cards spaced ten to twenty feet apart on the ground. The cards may include a topical quote, a prompt for journaling or action, a direction, or perhaps a question to ponder. These cards can be customized and adjusted to suit the needs of the students and to meet learning goals. Common categories for cards include introduction/closing, thought-provoking questions/quotes, observation/sensory prompts, directional signs, and anything in between. For example, a card may say, “Stop here until you hear two bird songs” or “Where was this boulder 100 years ago? 1,000 years ago?”
How do you do a solo walk?
A non-complex trail or route should be chosen ahead of time. To avoid confusion, a card indicating direction of travel should be placed at all junctions the students encounter during their walk. A typical trail length is approximately ¼ mile. Two instructors or adults are necessary for the solo walk. The process and implementation should be discussed ahead of time. Students begin by gathering at the head of the route. Instructor A will introduce the solo walk as a reflective activity and play a game with the students as they wait to begin their solo walk. Be clear to students about expectations, the benefits of doing a solo walk, and why it is important for them to walk slowly and silently throughout. Emphasize that if they see someone in front of them, they should slow down, perhaps spend more time at the current card, and give the person ahead time to walk out of sight.
After roll-out, Instructor B leaves to set out the cards on the trail. Approximately five to ten minutes later, instructor A begins sending one student at a time down the trail for the solo walk. Each student is sent down the trail in two-minute intervals. The order in which they are sent can be determined ahead of time by the instructors or the decision can be student-directed.
At the end of the solo walk, Instructor A will be waiting in an area in which students may silently sit and journal reflectively about their experience. This location should be large enough for the entire group and should be comfortable for students. After all students have returned and journaled, Instructor B will walk the trail, pick up the cards, and rejoin the group. At this point a debrief will occur. Since students will be arriving to the end location at different times, it is important to have an activity ready for them to complete while they wait. This could be journaling, drawing or using watercolors to illustrate something they noticed during the walk, sitting quietly and observing, or any other quiet independent activity.
The debrief
Debrief is one of the most important components of a solo walk, particularly when it is focused on reflecting, synthesizing, and sharing their experience. Responding to one to two pre-written questions in a journal while students wait for the rest of the group is a constructive activity that prepares them for sharing later. To accommodate different learning styles, offer students a choice of responding in a way that feels valuable to them i.e. writing, sketching, or a combination. Once all students have completed the walk and journaling, give them an opportunity to share in pairs and/or as a group. The act of sharing their experiences can be very powerful, but also recognize that not all students will want to share to a large group and, in those cases, sharing with one other person is sufficient.
Some examples of debrief questions can include:
What surprised you about this experience?
What was your favorite card? What cards would you include?
What advice would you give other students for their solo walk experience?
What are two things you learned and can use in daily life?
Use a mix of questioning strategies to draw out student reflection, and be clear about discussion norms to ensure emotional safety during a group debrief. Using the solo walk cards again for debrief is an effective way to provoke group discussion. Solo walk cards can be placed in a pile on the ground, students can then pick their favorite card and share with the group why this card was chosen. Similarly, cards with a variety of emotions written on them may be used to promote a deeper discussion about feelings.
Table 1. The solo walk implementation guide
Goal To practice reflection, critical thinking, introspective thought, and scientific observation skills.
Objective Students will be able to:
· Journal in a reflective manner
· Complete a solo walk in an isolated area
· Participate in group discussion in a meaningful way
Audience Age group: any age
Number of individuals: 10-15
Duration How long is the lesson? 60 minutes
How long will it take to follow up the field experience? 10-20 minutes for debrief
Location An appropriate trail route and length based on the group’s abilities and needs. Check location ahead of time to identify potential risks. Alternative options include: school hallways, or any green space that provides opportunity for solitude.
Management and safety Students are supervised at beginning and end of trail. Trail is appropriate in level of difficulty and complexity. Junctions are marked with clear directional signs. Emotional safety is addressed by partner walking or pairing a child with an adult.
Equipment · Prompt cards (25-50)
· Activity for before and after solo walk
· Writing utensils
· Student journals
The debrief activities are an excellent opportunity for both teachers and students to assess student experience, knowledge and insight resulting from a solo walk. This information can be used to guide future learning activities and goal setting.
Teaching applications
Solo walks as a tool
For teachers, a solo walk is a versatile tool that can be planned to meet a variety of learning objectives. How you frame the activity, when you conduct it, what cards you choose, the order in which they appear on the trail, and the debrief strategy are all opportunities to guide students towards a specific goal or outcome. For example, a solo walk can be used:
In the beginning of a week to introduce students to and help them connect with a new setting
To ground a group of individuals with mindful awareness and space for reflection
At the end of a week so students can reflect on all that they have accomplished and how they might transfer these skills to their daily lives
Before and/or after a team building activity
Solo Science
In science education settings, students are often bombarded with new techniques and terminology. Solo walks provide the solitude necessary for students to ponder, dissect, and make sense of complex concepts in a tangible way. Because solo walks are inherently independent, students can use scientific tools without any external influence, and think critically of the world around them without fear of failure. Instructors may choose an investigative topic to center the solo walk around or design a mini independent investigation to be conducted during the solo walk. For example, an investigative topic may be plant and animal adaptations. The pictures below are examples of how we have woven scientific practice into the solo walk experience.
Connecting to classroom and beyond
Solo walks offer an incredible opportunity for students to develop awareness and practice active reflection that is an essential and valuable tool in lifelong learning. It can be a transformative experience and its adaptability make it a valuable tool for teachers. Give your students ownership over their experience by having them create their own solo walk cards. Cards can be written in any language, made of recycled material, cut into shapes, etc. Get creative and make it work for you and your students!
Advice from the field
Here are some tips gathered from a survey of 39 outdoor educational professionals with experience facilitating solo walks:
• Keep objectives broad, learners will get different things from the experience. The learning goal can be as simple as having time alone in the woods and it will still be powerful.
• Utilize a variety of cards and consider how the cards you use will support a larger theme or create a desired experience or outcome. Use short, relatable quotes from a diverse group of people with different backgrounds and cultures.
• Check the trail ahead of time and bring a few extra cards and markers to take advantage of teachable moments. Let the trail speak to you. If it is windy, use rocks to weigh the cards down and if you are teaching in a place like the Pacific Northwest, make sure your cards will survive the rain.
For some students, walking alone in the woods can create anxiety or bring out behavioral challenges. Work with students on ways to help them feel safe and explain that it can be a challenge by choice. You can help by sharing your own experience with solo walks, pairing students together or with an adult, being intentional with the line order, giving directions silently, etc.
Have fun and get creative!
References
Kolb, David A. (2014). Experiential learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Case Western Reserve University. Prentice Hall PTR, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Giada Di Stefano, Francesca Gino, Gary Pisano & Bradley Staats. March 2014. Learning by Thinking: How Reflection Improves Performance. Harvard Business School Working Knowledge. Retrieved from https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/learning-by-thinking-how-reflection-improves-performance.
Wilson, Donna & Conyers, Marcus. (2013). Five Big Ideas for Effective Teaching: connecting mind, brain, and education research to classroom practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Zelazo, P. (2015). Executive function: Reflection, iterative reprocessing, complexity, and the developing brain. Developmental Review. Volume 38, 55-68.
Abigail M. Harding and Corwyn A. Ellison are environmental educators and graduate students at IslandWood and the University of Washington.
by editor | Sep 1, 2025 | At-risk Youth, Critical Thinking, Data Collection, Technology
by Greta Righter
As an instructor at IslandWood, an environmental learning center on Bainbridge Island, WA, my week with students is fleeting. I have four days during IslandWood’s School Overnight Program (SOP) to explore and investigate the natural world with groups of 4-6th graders, and it never seems to be enough time. At IslandWood, students gather for four days of learning on 250 acres of a forest ecosystem, engaging in science, arts, and team-building activities and lessons. Just as they are beginning to distinguish a Western hemlock from a Douglas fir, and communicate well as a team, it’s time for them to pack up and head home. Most of the students are from the Seattle area, coming from various socioeconomic backgrounds, and may or may not have access to nearby green spaces in their home neighborhoods. As a newcomer to the field of experiential outdoor education, I still have a nagging voice that wonders if my students might walk away feeling like they can only engage with the natural world if they are in the forest. One aspect of teaching outdoor education that often feels most challenging is the transfer of learning: how can I best encourage students to carry their wonder and excitement of the natural world home with them, even if home is an urban setting? In this article I will describe an experiment with integrating technology into my field studies, and how it made that nagging voice in my head a little quieter.
Transfer of learning, or the ability to apply knowledge learned in one context to new contexts, can feel like the ‘achilles heel’ of outdoor education (Brown, 2010). Students are removed from indoor classrooms, plopped into the woods for a week to learn about nature, and then shuttled back to their desks a few days later. As one outdoor educator put it, “a major and persistent challenge for outdoor adventure education is the extent to which the learning experiences of students affect change beyond the immediate outdoor environment” (Brown, 2010, p.13). Programs like IslandWood’s SOP seek to create continuity in this experience through pre- and post-visit lessons to the classroom. Still, many outdoor education programs do not have any means of assessing transfer of learning. As I wave both hands goodbye to the buses pulling away each week, a little voice in the back of my head always wonders… “What will they remember? Did I make an impact?”
Citizen Science & Phone Apps
Recently, I decided to focus my field instruction on the theme of citizen science. The National Geographic Society defines citizen science as “the practice of public participation and collaboration in scientific research to increase scientific knowledge” (National Geographic Society, 2012). With my student field group we broke down this term and defined citizen science as ‘regular people who make scientific observations’. I also provided some examples to my students of large citizen science projects that are going on around the world. In the interest of weaving citizen science work into my lessons, I experimented with the iNaturalist app in the field because it is user-friendly, it has a generalist focus on species identification and location, and it has the ability to connect users to other citizen scientists making similar discoveries. iNaturalist describes its function as ‘a place where you can record what you see in nature, meet other nature lovers, and learn about the natural world’ (iNaturalist.org, 2012). It seemed like the perfect tool to integrate into SOP, which focuses on making observations, and supporting claims with gathered evidence. The iNaturalist app provides a more interactive medium for recording and utilizing data, while also connecting those observations beyond the IslandWood setting.
The Struggle with ‘Screen time’
I felt some apprehension about introducing technology into outdoor education. As someone who experiences the outdoors as sanctuary, a place to escape the dings and rings of computers and phones, it made my heart hurt a little bit to bring a glowing screen into my field studies. I wondered, are technology and place-based learning inherently at odds with each other? Does gazing into a glowing screen detract from the experience of being immersed in the natural processes of the world? As a self-proclaimed luddite, one who fears and avoids the rapid progression of our tech-focused society, it felt like going against the grain to introduce technology into my field instruction. Worries about technology failures, lack of access to the internet, and encouraging more screen time amongst a generation of students who I honestly believe need less screen time riddled my mind. There are many who share this concern – a number of studies have linked the increase in mobile screen use among children to a variety of adverse outcomes including (but not limited to): decreased ability to recognize human emotions (Uhls, et.al., 2014), increase in childhood obesity rates (Chen, et.al., 2014), difficulty sleeping (Cajochen, 2011), and increased anxiety and depression (Twenge, et.al., 2017).
On the other hand, I believe that nothing is ever black and white. Technology does not have to be the enemy, and teachers and parents should not have to be suited up in a constant battle against it. Screens are here, and they are here to stay, and there are many good reasons for integrating technology into all areas of instruction. The need for future generations to be highly proficient in various forms of technology is of increasing importance (Haberman, 2010, p. 85). Also, technology offers a different medium of learning, and can broaden students’ connection with the world beyond their classroom. But that’s the classroom… how would it work to use an iPod out in the field?
How Did It Go?
The learning goals for our week of citizen science studies were for students to 1.) work together so that each student would input a new species identification into the iNaturalist app 2.) be able to describe what citizen science is, and 3.) give an example of how and where they would use this technology at home. In order to ensure successful integration of technology in the field, I made sure to establish some ‘tech norms’ before getting started:
Tech Norms:
Only the instructor (myself) will carry and use the iPod.
We will only utilize the phone for the iNaturalist app.
Everyone will contribute one species identification to the database.
We will work as a team to help each other identify and input new species.
On our second full field day each student chose a specialist name tag – they chose between: Mycologist, Botanist, Zoologist, Entomologist, Ornithologist, & Marine Biologist. I explained that this was not the only thing they could explore – in fact, everyone’s goal for the day was to be a leader of investigating their specialization for the whole group. The mycologist could call others over when they found a mushroom they wanted help identifying. The ornithologist could ask others what colors they saw on that bird that just landed in a nearby tree. Our goal was to work together. Each student was equipped with a unique field guide, and other tools they might need to study the details of organisms, such as binoculars, magnifying glasses, and jars to collect specimens.
I immediately noticed that students were highly motivated to identify the plants and creatures they were discovering because of their interest in the iNaturalist app. Just as writing assignments geared towards a real audience can increase student motivation, so does recording observations and species identifications for a world-wide database (Norton-Meier, Hand, Hockenberry, & Wise, 2008). We talked about the fact that our identifications may not be accurate, but that was not the goal of the lesson. I reminded them that their goals are to practice using field guides, to work together to identify species, and to contribute their findings to the iNaturalist database for other citizen scientists, just like them, to review.
Our first species identification was at Blakely Harbor – a Purple Shore Crab (Hemigrapsus nudus). Students were eager to identify the gender of the crab, and wondered if there was a place to input that data into the app. I wasn’t sure so we searched together, and we found that there is a space to add general field notes so we put the gender there. After the Purple Shore Crab, we identified a Glaucous Winged Gull (Larus glaucescens) and an Acorn Barnacle (Balanus glandula). Back in the woods there were ambitious plans for moss and mushroom identification. I input all of the ID’s just as the students wanted me to, even if we weren’t 100% sure that they were correct. That’s part of the beauty of the iNaturalist app – it connects us to other people who are making the same discoveries, reviewing our pictures, and it allows them to reach out to us if they think we may have erred. Just as my students worked together to pour through the pages of their field guides, all scientists work together to make discoveries and make sense of the world around us.
Transfer of Learning through Technology
Apps like iNaturalist provide a familiar and intriguing medium for recording observations and create a means to transfer those observation skills from the outdoor education experience back to the student’s life at home. Each of my students left IslandWood with iNaturalist written down in their journals and a location they thought might use the app at home. This week I gave my students a tool – a real live tool. Not a theoretical idea or feeling, but something tangible that they can walk away with and use in their day-to-day lives at home or school. They can use this tool to continue practicing their observation skills, nurturing their own interest in the environment, and connecting with other citizen scientists. Through sharing this technology with my students, I realized that even though I chose to limit my own screen time, it is unrealistic for me to expect the same of upcoming generations. As long as the generations of a highly technological world are going to be using phones and tablets, then perhaps we, as educators, should be striving to create the best possible outcomes for this screen time.
References for this article can be found on the web version at http://www.clearingmagazine.org/archives/
Greta Righter is an instructor and graduate student at IslandWood on Bainbridge Island, WA. She is pursuing her M. Ed. in Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Washington.
by editor | Aug 26, 2025 | Arts and Humanities, At-risk Youth, Environmental Literacy, Language Arts
By Emilie Lygren
I am a poet and outdoor science educator.” This is what I say when asked what I do for work. For me, poetry and outdoor science are complementary ways of looking at the world. They’re both rooted in common attitudes of attention, curiosity, and humility. They both require being present with the world in a deep way. And both fields of study can support learners, educators, and communities to develop environmental literacy and a sense of place.
My own relationship with poetry and outdoor learning started early. While growing up in the Monterey area in California, I loved spending time outside. I liked to study nearby trees, plants, animals, and bodies of water, and I often composed poems in my mind based on what I saw. Paying close attention to my surroundings helped me feel grounded and connected to place. Learning through my own observations made me curious to know more. In part, these interests emerged from having access to outdoor spaces and parents who encouraged me to express myself creatively. I was also fortunate to learn through an ecosystem of experiences in nature and generous individuals and groups I’d known.
I had a fantastic sixth-grade science teacher who invited students to engage in curious, careful investigation of the mysteries of the world. At the beginning of a class period, he’d hand out binoculars and field guides, then say, “Go out and find out what birds we have on campus. Come back in an hour and tell me what you saw.” Throughout the school year, our class mapped which plants grew around the schoolyard, collected and sketched insects, searched for fence lizards, and discussed how the school’s water use impacted nearby animal and human communities. By the end of the year, I’d gained a set of tools and mindsets for nature study that continues to sustain me to this day; environmental education made a difference in how I perceived myself as a learner and as a community member.
But not everyone has the access to the outdoor spaces and environmental learning opportunities that I did. In fact, access to green space and educational opportunities is often stratified by race and class. Many organizations in California and beyond are working to address these disparities and expand access and inclusion in the outdoors, including affinity-based organizations like Latino Outdoors and Outdoor Afro, education and advocacy organizations like Justice Outside, networking and community-building organizations like Ten Strands, and many more. Policy efforts such as “A Blueprint for Environmental Literacy” lay out a vision and strategies for “educating every California student in, about, and for the environment.” And there are hundreds of providers across the state that offer outdoor learning experiences. The work of all of these organizations is important and necessary to support environmental literacy.
I have spent most of my time in the outdoor education world working with the BEETLES Project, based at the Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley. Since its beginning in 2011, BEETLES has focused specifically on shifting the culture of outdoor teaching toward learner-centered pedagogy, encouraging instructors to be curious about students’ ideas, to represent science as a way of thinking rather than a list of facts, to help learners develop transferable thinking tools, and to focus on common and accessible parts of nature. BEETLES professional learning sessions, like “Making Observations,” offer learner- and nature-centered practices, paired with research and theory behind why they are effective. BEETLES student activities, like “Discovery Swap,” offer practical, learner-centered resources for instructors to use. Supporting resources, such as “Engaging and Managing Students in Outdoor Science” and “BEETLES Guide for Outdoor Science Program and Organization Leaders,” offer general support for instructors and organizations.
Prior to working for the BEETLES Project, I was an instructor at residential outdoor education schools, where I spent every day outside with students. My goal was to offer learners a range of different ways for being outdoors, from direct observation and close study of organisms to discussions of environmental issues to nature journaling to exuberant play. I also called on my love of poetry and facilitated writing exercises with students. I found that learner-centered, observation-based teaching practices and nature journaling in particular fed easily into poetry. My poetry eye quickly noticed that lists of observations, questions, and connections that students said out loud often sounded a lot like poetry––which is teeming with observations, questions, and connections. It wasn’t hard to encourage budding young writers to transform their scrawled notes, memories, and firsthand observations into poems, which they were often eager to share.
Ada Limón, the national poet laureate, says, “Poetry offers us a way to be closer to who you are.” In my experience, poetry also offers us a way to be closer to where we are through the process of careful observation, as in Brooke Maren Yokell’s poem:
My Backyard in the Spring
Brooke Maren Yokell, third grade
I sit in the backyard for
hours looking up and noticing the
clouds swiftly drift by
When I’m there I hear the bees
buzzing, the birds chirping
and wind gently blowing the trees.
I let the low wind hit my face
with warm spring air.
I let the warm air flood through
my body.
I sink into the
hot grass trying
to figure out
the shapes of
the clouds. The
wind gently pushes the
trees toward us.
Writing and sharing poetry in the context of environmental learning supports learner-centered teaching, making room for students to share their perspectives and experiences, as in Lena Nguyen’s poem:
My Old Old Old neighborhood
Lena Nguyen, third grade
My old old old neighborhood
where I used to live
was a home to me.
It had everything I needed.
Playground behind my house.
And every time I was sad
it would calm me with
sweet hushing rain.
When I was not scared
it would scare me with thunder.
If I was bored it would let
the sun out and welcome me to play.
Every year it would celebrate
with different decorated trucks
depending on the year.
My old old old neighborhood
used to cheer me up all the time.
Writing poetry is also a way to reflect on responsibility, making sound choices, and reflecting how actions may impact communities, places, and people––as in Ada Limón’s “A New National Anthem.” Writing poetry offers a way to slow down, notice, and adorn the ordinary with attention, as the luminous poet Naomi Shihab Nye describes in “Valentine for Ernest Mann.” And, writing poetry can be a way to name and cherish meaningful memories of places, people, and communities, as in my own poem about elders teaching children how to plant seeds.
On the following page are two poetry exercises that integrate poetry into environmental and outdoor programming (suggested for students age seven and older). Use them with groups of students, or respond to them as writing prompts yourself!
Throughout my career in environmental and outdoor science education, reading, writing, and teaching about poetry has helped me to stay connected to purpose and place. I have returned to poetry again and again and been sustained by the joy and perspective I’ve found there. I hope this article offers ideas for calling on poetry as a means to support environmental learning with your students and communities.
Resources for Further Study of Poetry and Science, and Learner-Centered Instruction
Poets for Science, an exhibit curated by Jane Hirschfield
Voices of Nature Series in Poetry of Resilience, a series of interviews with poets who write about nature, facilitated by James Crews and Danusha Laméris
Ada Limón interview “To Be Made Whole,” from On Being with Krista Tippet
Naomi Shihab Nye interview “Pay Attention. Be Kind. Live Large,” on No Small Endeavor
“I Notice, I Wonder, It Reminds Me Of,” a BEETLES activity that can be used to support science learning or poetry
“Offering I Notice, I Wonder, It Reminds Me Of as a Tool for Social Emotional Learning,” from the BEETLES Project blog
Poems with themes of outdoors, place, and observation (a few of many!)
“Everything Comes Next,” by Naomi Shihab Nye
“Sparrow Envy,” by J. Drew Lanham
“What We Were Born For,” by Emilie Lygren
Emilie Lygren’s story was originally published by Ten Strands, a California–based nonprofit working to strengthen the partnerships and strategies that will bring climate and environmental literacy to all of California’s TK–12 students.
CGA gives cancer survivors the opportunity to experience the beauty of life within Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. Over the course of a week, students experience America’s first national park in this grand adventure. Chaperones who participated as students in years past accompany current students, giving them role models to help support their healing process. A typical group consists of four chaperones, nine students and three instructors. This offers the ability to build a tight knit community. Emma Hereford is a chaperone who has been a mentor for 5 years. Emma stated:
Teton Science School provides field instructors to CGA who are experts of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). Instructors get to use a Place-Based Education approach to teach students about all that the GYE has to offer. Place Based Education, a pedagogy that uses the power of place to teach students an approach that is learner centered, incorporates design thinking, is interdisciplinary, and uses the community as the classroom. The vice president of field education, Joe Petrick, states:
Samantha Wolniakowski recently completed her Masters Degree at Southern Oregon University, where she was a graduate assistant in the MS Environmental Education program.